L Dallas, Pennsylvania The Back Mountain's Newspaper Since 1889 December 5 to December 11, 2002 United We Stand Vol. 113 No. 49 SPORTS Dallas, Lehman girls look for strong seasons. Pg 11. POS SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF THE DALLAS & LAKE-LEHMAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS 50 Cents SCHOOL Dozens of local students win Penn State scholarships. Pg 15. COMMUNITY Legion picks costume winneers. Pg 5. Woman expected to testify against co-defendant A Tina Young gets outside lawyer to avoid conflict By DAVID WEISS Special to The Dallas Post WILKES-BARRE — Tina Young will appar- ently testify against her boyfriend who, po- lice say, shot and killed a Dallas High School student. Young is charged with second-degree mur- der and Larry Tooley is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the Nov. 8 shooting death of Casey Zalenski inside his Demunds Road home in Franklin Township. Police said the two broke into ‘Zalenski’'s home looking for money for drugs. A preliminary hearing for the two is sched- uled for Dec. 19 before District Justice James Tupper of Kingston Township. Both suspects applied for and are eligible to be represented by public defenders. On Tuesday, pubic defenders William Ruzzo and Jonathan Blum asked that an attorney from outside the office represent Young because she made a statement to police and “is ex- pected to testify against” Tooley. If Young, 33, and Tooley, 46, were both represented by the Public Defender’s Office, there is a possibility of a conflict, the attor- neys wrote in court papers seeking the ap- pointment. : Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joseph Augello appointed attorney Michael Senape to represent Young. Senape. could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Police said Young, who had been friends with the Zalenskis and knew the family kept money at the home, gave police a detailed account of the burglary at the Zalenski home. When she and Tooley arrived at the home, she checked to make sure no one was inside. Tooley, carrying a .38-caliber revolver and wearing gloves, went into the home to steal money for heroin, police said. Young thought no one was home, but Za- lenski and his younger brother missed See TESTIFY, pg 3 Visioning to hold public meeting The Dallas Community Visioning exercise, Our Dallas: Today and Tomorrow will hold a public meeting Wednesday, December 11 at 7 p.m. in the Kennedy Lounge of the Banks Cen- ter on the campus of College Misericordia. The purpose of the meeting is the announce- ment of the Vision Statement. The Vision State- ment is the result of a series of public meetings and workshops that have been held over the past 12 months involving a SWOT Analysis- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis conducted by the steering committee and the work of four task forces formed from the results of a community survey that was completed in May of 2002. The four Task Forces, have been gathering information on specific issues affecting the community and identifying possible solutions. They have held regular meetings during the last several months in an effort to crystallize the visioning mission statement. The four Task Force areas designed to improve the quality of life for Dallas area residents and businesses are Downtown Revitalization, Community Ser- vices, Traffic Issues and Master Planning. All Back Mountain residents are urged to at- tend this public meeting to participate in envi- sioning the future of their community. It will provide citizens that have been unable to at- tend previous meetings an opportunity to get involved and for those individuals who have not yet joined a task force to join. There will be the opportunity to volunteer for any of the four Task Forces. The meeting will include presentations by re- gional program facilitators and refreshments will be served. Any questions pertaining to the community visioning or the public meeting can be forwarded to the Dallas Borough adminis- trative office 25 Main Street, Dallas, 18612, 675-1389. : : Tree topper Alexe Rice, with a boost from her dad, Gary, topped off the tree entered in the Parade of Trees at Grotto Pizza by Gary's business, Rice's Food Equipment and Consulting,. The annual event raises funds for charities from dona- tions used as votes for the favorite out of 23 trees on display. More photos on page 4. y POST PHOTO/CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK Districts satisfied with latest test scores A Federal requirements, though distant, will require perfection By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff Leaders of both Back Mountain school dis- tricts say they are content with this year’s Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) scores. Even so, the challenges of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation passed last year leave no room for compla- cency. In 2014, schools across the country will have to have 100 percent of their children up to proficient or above performance levels in math and reading. Districts in the Back Mountain are ahead of most districts in that regard, but still have a long way to go. In 2001, the PSSA test introduced four per- formance levels: advanced, proficient, basic and below basic. Districts will have to bring all of their children to the top two tiers or face consequences that could include allowing their students to leave for other districts. “Overall, I'm satisfied with our scores. I think we're making adequate progress,” said Bob Roberts, Lake-Lehman Superintendent. Although math and reading test scores are down this year at Lake-Lehman elementary and middle school levels, Roberts said over a five-year period his district's test scores have stayed about the same or increased a bit. This year Lehman-Jackson saw a -70 drop in their math score and a -60 drop in the read- ing score at Lake-Noxen. (PSSA guidelines di- rect administrators to disregard differences from year to year that are below 50 points as statistically insignificant.) Lehman's proficiency scores in math at the elementary level place 51.7 percent of stu- See TEST SCORES, pg 16 Hillside Farms adapts to new business climate By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff TRUCKSVILLE — As local dairy farms dwindle in num- bers, Will Conyngham, co-owner of Hillside Farms Dairy says dipped ice cream and the addition of wholesale milk distribution have been key to the longevity of his small, family owned busi- ness. According to Conyng- ham, when Hillside Farms Dairy Store opened in the late 1970s, there were about 300 dairy farms in the state processing their own milk and selling it on site. He believes today there are about three dozen. “There are a lot of dairy farmers that are just dis- continuing because milk is selling at very low prices, both in the stores and at the farm level. Farmers are basically saying Tm not getting enough to cover my cost of production,” said Conyngham. About a year ago, while driving Route 118 in Ly- coming County, Conyng- ham saw an opportunity. In the 45 minutes he was on the highway that leads to Valley Farms Dairy, he saw five milk-carrying tractor trailers coming from the general area of Luzerne County heading toward the large milk pro- cessing plant. “And 1 he said. POST PHOTO/ERIN YOUNGMAN Will Conyngham held a Hillside Dairy milk bottle from 1921 in his right hand, and a-modern one in his left. thought, ‘there is an example of how much market share that company is getting out of here (Luzerne County), According to Conyngham, most of the milk in the area either comes from out of the county, or out of the state. 20 Pages, 2 Sections “There is so much milk coming into the county from out of the area, there's two of us little guys (The other is Precora Broth- ers in Drums) that are even operating and I'm saying, is there room for me to have a larger chunk of that market? I've got to believe there is,” said Conyngham. Consequently, Conyngham said Hill- side decided to enter into a marketing rela- tionship with Northeast Dairy Distributors, for the wholesale distribu- tion of fluid milk prod- ucts. He said when they did, the demand for the product was so great, it quickly ex- ceeded the amount Hillside Farms Dairy could produce. Constrained by cost and space issues, Conyngham said, rather : than expand their own dairy farm to satisfy demand, they decided to “go off farm” to buy milk from other local farmers. Subse- quently, Hillside has See HILLSIDE, pg 7 Calendar...........cccovieevens 20 yn Classified..............ons 17-19 CroSsSWOrd:........ civiies iii 12 Editorials. ........i.a. ining 6 ODIUBIIES.. ...cv cine his venits 2 SCHOOL... iswienits 14-15 SPOONS is iii 11-13 CALL 675-5211 FOR HOME DELIVERY, NEWS OR ADVERTISING E-mail: dallaspost@Ileader.net Please enclose this label with any address changes, and mail to The Dallas Post P.O. Box 366, Dallas, PA 18612-0366
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